


Untold Stories

by DiscordantWords



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Community: holmestice, First Kiss, John is a Mess, M/M, Story: The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: John doesn't want to write up their latest case. Sherlock can't seem to let it go.





	Untold Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_different_equation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_different_equation/gifts).



> A_different_equation, in your Holmestice prompt you said you'd like to see Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in love, living in 221B and solving crimes. You also mentioned you prefer angst over pure fluff. I hope this fits the bill!

"You didn't put that last one on your blog." 

John sets the paper down on the kitchen table, looks up. 

Sherlock has spoken through a mouthful of dry toast. He has one hand cupped under his chin to catch the falling crumbs, and one eye pressed up against the microscope. 

His posture suggests indifference, but there is an odd sharpness to his tone that belies that. 

John clears his throat. "Which one?" 

"You know which one," Sherlock says, still not looking away from the microscope. He finishes chewing, shakes out his hand, wipes it absently on the side of his dressing gown. 

"You know those crumbs don't just disappear when they land on the floor, yeah?" John says. "You'll have to hoover them up. Well. _Someone_ has to hoover them up. Usually me." 

"Robert Walsingham's missing bride," Sherlock says. "Seems the sort of thing you'd write up." 

"I don't put every case on the blog." 

"Mm, no, only the memorable ones, so you say," Sherlock wrinkles his nose, adjusts the focus on the microscope. "Still not entirely clear on your methods for defining _memorable._ " 

"The cases I think readers will enjoy," John says. He shifts in his chair. Sherlock is not looking at him, and yet he has the uncomfortable sense of being studied quite closely. 

"Runaway brides, lost loves, secret identities," Sherlock says. "Oh! And no one died. Seems _exactly_ the sort of thing you'd slap with a trite title and serve up to your adoring public." 

"To your adoring public, you mean," John says. He pinches his brow. 

Sherlock lifts his head from the microscope, looks at him. His face is impossible to read. 

The silence hangs between them a shade too long. 

"I've got to go get Rosie," John says. He does not look down at his watch. He stands, retrieves his coat and goes out the door without looking back.

 

 

It is early, so John walks slowly. It is a nice day, not quite warm enough yet to go without a coat, but there is a pleasing hint of spring in the air. 

He walks and he tries not to think about Robert Walsingham's missing bride. 

What Sherlock said is the truth: it is the sort of case his readers would enjoy. There is intrigue and romance and, best of all, a tidy resolution. No messy deaths. No grief at all, really, save for a bruised heart that would surely mend with time. 

He does not want to write about it. 

He does not want to think about it at all, but it is far too late for that. 

He arrives outside Rosie's school a half hour ahead of schedule, leans against the fence and tips his face up to the weak sunshine. 

 

 

Robert Walsingham had appeared at the flat early on a Sunday morning, announcing his arrival with two rings of the buzzer—the first a tentative strike at half pressure, the second press firmer, more sure. 

He'd come up the stairs in a rumpled tuxedo, wringing his hands. He'd had light brown hair, thin on the top, graying at the temples. It had been in a state of some disarray. He'd smelled of sweat, the sharp kind, the kind that accompanied fear or stress. 

Rosie had just finished with her breakfast, and Mrs Hudson had executed a smooth maneuver, showing Walsingham in as she ushered Rosie down the stairs with her. 

"It's my wife," Walsingham had said. "Something terrible has happened to her." 

John had looked at Sherlock, and Sherlock had looked back at him. There had been something in his expression that John could not begin to parse. He'd nodded.

Sherlock had retreated to his chair, had tucked his hands under his chin. 

John had retrieved his notebook from the desk drawer, had settled into his own chair. Waited. 

"From the beginning, then," Sherlock had said. "Leave nothing out." 

 

 

"Daddy," Rosie says. 

John comes back to himself, standing amidst a crowd of other parents, children swarming around them. Rosie shrugs out of her little yellow backpack and presses it against his hand until he takes it. 

"Hi," he says, crouching down so they are eye-to-eye. "How was school?" 

She tells him, in excruciating detail, as they walk. Rosie's little hand tucks into his own, her grip firm. 

He takes her to the park and lets her run off some energy, settling himself on a nearby bench to keep an eye on her. 

He had never given much thought to the idea of fatherhood, and had certainly never imagined himself raising a small girl on his own, but he can no longer quite imagine life without her. 

John thinks again of Robert Walsingham in his rumpled tuxedo, of the misplaced bride with her plaintive eyes and stumbling apologies. Of her lover, standing just beside the door, chin high, unashamed. 

The hotel room had been uncomfortably warm. Something wrong with the forced air. He had begun to sweat, standing there, listening to Sherlock lay it all out. 

_I thought he was dead,_ the bride, Hattie, her voice choked with tears. _I didn't know what to do. What was I supposed to do?_

"I'm hungry," Rosie tells him, and he is surprised to see that more than an hour has passed. He looks at her. She has his eyes. Mary's nose. An impish smile. He loves her. 

"I didn't know what to do," John says. He stands up from the bench, takes her hand. He feels strangely like crying. "What was I supposed to do?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Nothing," John tells her. "Let's get something to eat." 

 

 

He picks up dinner and carries it back to 221B. The hallway is warm and sweet-smelling as he shuts the door behind them—Mrs Hudson has been baking again. 

Rosie detaches her hand from his and runs up the stairs, her trainers thudding against the wood. He follows at a slower pace, the takeaway bag warm in his arms. 

Sherlock will have forgotten all about the Walsingham case and the blog by now, surely. 

John sets Rosie's little backpack down on the ground against the wall, goes through the door into the kitchen. Places the takeaway bag on the worn scuffed tabletop. 

"I was thinking _The Vanishing Bride,_ " Sherlock tells him. 

John looks up. Sherlock is in the sitting room, in his chair. His head is back, his eyes closed.

"What?" John says. 

"The case. The one you've yet to write up. _The Vanishing Bride._ "

"You hate those kinds of titles." 

"Do I?" 

"Yes," John says. He crosses his arms. 

The toilet flushes down the hall. Rosie emerges from the bathroom. 

"Did you wash your hands?" John asks her. 

She frowns at him and he watches her contemplate the lie before giving in and retreating back into the bathroom. He hears the squeak of the tap, the rush of water. 

"Your readers seem to like them," Sherlock says. He tips his head forward, squints through the fading light. "Those kinds of titles." 

John stares at him for a moment. Clears his throat. "Since when do you care what the readers like?" 

"I don't," Sherlock says. "Never mind." He stands, smooths his suit jacket, joins John in the kitchen. Looks at the bag on the table. 

"I brought Chinese," John says unnecessarily. 

Sherlock hums in agreement, begins to rustle around in the bag. 

John gets three plates from the cabinet, sets the table.

Rosie slides into her usual chair. Her little hands are clumsy around the chopsticks and Sherlock stands behind her, patiently shows her again how to use them. John uses a fork. 

It should not work, he thinks. None of this should work. But it does. 

 

 

After dinner, Rosie sprawls out on the sitting room floor with her homework. Sherlock retreats to his chair. They do not light a fire, though the warmth of the afternoon has long worn off and there is still a bite of lingering winter in the evening air. 

John turns on his laptop, looks at his blog without writing anything. 

He notices Sherlock noticing him. 

" _The Corpse at the Wedding,_ " Sherlock says. 

"Knew you'd want to bring corpses into it eventually," John says.

" _The Ghost at the Wedding,_ " Sherlock amends. 

John laughs, the sound thin and uncomfortable to his own ears. He looks up at the ceiling. 

" _The Spectre at the Feast._ " 

"There wasn't any feast," John says, his hand clenching involuntarily against his thigh. 

"Figure of speech." 

"Rosie," John says, looking away. "It's time for bed." 

She grumbles a bit, but she has long since finished her homework and slumped, heavy-eyed, in front of the telly.

John takes her upstairs into the cramped little room they share. He helps her into her pyjamas, tucks her in. She watches him, her eyes wide in the shadows. 

"Can—?" 

"He'll be up," John says. He kisses her forehead, goes out of the room.

Sherlock is waiting at the foot of the stairs, book in hand. John nods as they pass. 

Rosie prefers the bedtime stories that Sherlock chooses, and John has long since given up feeling irritated over it and has instead come to enjoy the respite. 

He settles into his chair, leans his head back, shuts his eyes. Tries not to think about the bloody _vanishing bride_ or the _ghost at the wedding._

As is always the case when it comes to Sherlock, his resolve fails him. 

 

 

"It was a beautiful ceremony," Walsingham had said. "Hattie was so very happy." 

"So happy right up until the moment she disappeared," Sherlock said. 

"Well," Walsingham had looked down at the ground, wrung his hands together. He looked around the room without seeming to focus on any one thing, began to pace. 

John had looked at Sherlock, because Sherlock hated when the clients paced. He preferred to be the one pacing, observing them from every angle while they sat stationary. 

Sherlock had not looked particularly perturbed. He'd lifted his brows and said: "When exactly did she stop displaying signs of happiness?" 

"Well," Walsingham had said again. "It was nothing, really, just—" 

"If it had been nothing, you'd no doubt be off on sex holid—" and Sherlock had caught himself there, glanced over at John and smoothly redirected to "—honeymoon in some overpriced 'all-inclusive' resort where there's little else to do but sprawl gasping in the sun whilst being fooled into thinking that the watered down cocktail you've just been served is some sort of spectacular value because it's free. It's not actually free, you know, you've just paid up front." 

"Sherlock," John had said. 

"No," Walsingham said, and there was something defeated in his voice. "You're right. Of course. If all had gone to plan, we'd be off on holiday. Hattie does so love the beach." 

Sherlock had leaned back in his chair, waited. 

"It was at the wedding," Walsingham said finally. "During the ceremony. Just a—a clumsy little mistake. That was all. But it took the smile right off of her face." 

"Mr Walsingham, I may be a genius, but I'm afraid I'm going to need a bit more detail than _that._ " 

"She dropped her flowers. On the way to the altar. She was smiling and walking towards me and then—well. Like I said. Clumsy little mistake. Nerves, I thought. One of the guests handed the bouquet back up to her. She was flustered. Embarrassed." 

"The ceremony continued." 

"Yes, of course," Walsingham said. "You don't cancel a wedding because the bride's dropped her flowers, do you? She sorted herself out and we got on with it." 

"And?" 

"And she was nervous. Distracted. Shaking. Only giving me half of her attention. I thought the mishap with the flowers had upset her. A bit silly, I'd thought, but then aren't all girls a bit silly about their weddings?" 

Sherlock had made a soft, derisive noise, but his expression did not change. 

"And then?" 

"She left to freshen up before the reception. She kissed me on the cheek and went through the doors and she—she never returned." 

 

 

"You're thinking about the case," Sherlock says. 

John lifts his head, blinks. Sherlock has settled into the chair across from him, his knees tucked under his chin. He has shed his suit jacket in favour of a blue dressing gown. His gaze is sharp, intent on John. 

" _You're_ thinking about the case," John counters. 

Sherlock goes on studying him. His eyes have gone near colourless in the dim lamplight. 

"It bothers you," Sherlock says, finally. He frowns, tucks his chin in. "Why?" 

"It doesn't—" John stops. Sherlock is looking steadily at him, unblinking. There is no fooling him. He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. "It was just—cruel. It was cruel." 

Sherlock's brow furrows up. He does not seem to know what to say. 

"She ruined his life, yeah?" John says, finally. He breathes out through his nose, looks at the ground. "Letting him believe they were happy, and just—running off. Like that." 

 

 

"What do you believe happened to her?" Sherlock had asked, his voice keen with interest. 

John had looked from Sherlock to Walsingham and back again, waiting. 

Walsingham shrugged, helpless, sweating and miserable in his wilted tuxedo. "I thought—perhaps—illness? Or—?" 

"Illness."

"Well." 

"You believe she fell ill and—just sort of wandered off?" Sherlock had scoffed. 

"She might have—" 

"I'm told _cold feet_ is a common enough phenomenon. Isn't it far more likely that she simply regretted her decision to marry?" 

"Sherlock," John had said. He'd looked up at the ceiling. "One usually gets cold feet before the wedding, not after." 

"So you agree it's more likely she simply wandered off." 

"Well, no," John had admitted. "But _something_ clearly happened—" 

And Sherlock had gasped, _gasped,_ that thrilled breath of realization, and had unfolded up from his chair in one graceful rush. "Yes, of course, something happened. Something _happened._ It did, didn't it?" 

 

 

" _Ruined his life_ is rather strongly worded, don't you think?" 

John looks up. Sherlock is still frowning at him. 

"She married him and then ran off with another man," John says. "That same afternoon. That doesn't qualify as life ruining to you?" 

Sherlock shrugs, looks away.

"Oh, what am I even saying," John mutters, shifting in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. "Your idea of _life ruining_ would probably be being forced to spend the rest of it with someone." 

Sherlock's gaze snaps back to John. His mouth falls open. He looks as if he means to speak. He says nothing. 

 

 

They'd tracked down the photographer. ("He still charged his full fee! Even though there was no bloody reception to shoot!" Walsingham had roared.) 

"You're thinking it was the photographer?" John had said, smiling a little. "Getting to be a bit cliché, yeah?" 

"Not this time," Sherlock had said. There had been a soft, surprised smile on his face. 

It had occurred to John only belatedly that he did not joke about his wedding. Not anymore. 

The photographer had not yet begun to edit or cull out the best shots, and there were hundreds to sort through. It was almost as good as video. 

Plain as day, in those pictures. Hattie, the wayward bride, making her way down the aisle, resplendent in white lace. A pretty, practiced smile on her face. A waver in her expression, caught frozen there on the screen as her eyes landed on a guest on the aisle, third pew from the front. 

There were three snaps of the bouquet tumbling from her grasp. One perfectly manicured hand pressed against her mouth. 

_Nerves,_ Walsingham had said, but he'd not noticed her demeanor had changed before she'd dropped the bouquet, not after. 

The man in the third pew from the front stooped to pick up the bouquet. He'd handed it back to her. Her eyes had locked on his face. 

Even after she'd continued her walk down the aisle, she'd turned. She'd stared. There were no more smiles. She'd looked over her shoulder while linking hands with her new husband. She'd been wild-eyed, pallid. 

"Who is that man?" Sherlock had demanded. 

Walsingham shrugged. "No idea. Never seen him before in my life." 

And Sherlock had smiled. 

 

 

"John," Sherlock says. 

"No," John shakes his head, presses his lips together. "Sorry. I—didn't mean that." 

Sherlock looks at him. His fingers tap rhythmically against the arms of his chair. "Perfectly sound assumption. You're right, of course. Worst possible outcome. Dreadful. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." 

John laughs, but there is no real humour in it.

"Drink?" Sherlock asks him. 

He nods, then shakes his head, then nods again. Sherlock stands, moves past him into the kitchen. 

The hearth is dark and cool. He wishes they'd thought to light a fire. It always feels more like home when there is a fire.

Behind him, Sherlock fusses with glasses. 

_But you are spending the rest of your life with someone,_ John thinks. _Aren't you?_

Sherlock returns, hands him a tumbler of dark liquor. A single ice cube clinks against the glass. 

_I didn't know what to do,_ John thinks. _What was I supposed to do?_

_I thought he was dead._

 

 

They found her in an inexpensive hotel on the outskirts of London.

Sherlock had circulated Hattie's photograph to his homeless network. It had not taken them long. 

She had answered the door in an old t-shirt, her hair piled haphazardly on her head. There had been a bewildered smile on her face, a smile that had fallen when she caught sight of Walsingham over Sherlock's shoulder. 

"Oh," she'd said. 

And there had been tears, and explanations, and her lover standing stoic and unashamed on the other side of the doorway. 

A soldier, she'd told them. Believed killed in action. A grievous injury and mistaken identity. He'd returned home just in time to find his beloved set to marry someone else. 

"I thought he was dead," Hattie had sobbed. "I didn't know what to do. What was I supposed to do?" 

John had said nothing. He'd looked up at the ceiling and he'd clenched his fist. The room was warm, too warm. Something wrong with the forced air. There was a room service cart pushed against the far wall. The crowded smell of sweating bodies and half-eaten food was overwhelming in the heat. 

He'd avoided looking at Sherlock. 

"I wanted to tell you," Hattie said. She'd stepped towards Walsingham but stopped short of touching him. "I—I was so shocked I just—I just went through with it." 

John had turned and gone out of the room. He'd shut the door quietly behind him. 

The hallway was no cooler than the room, although it had the benefit of being empty. He leaned against the peeling wallpaper and thought about the photographs. Hattie in her wedding dress, going through the motions, her hands shaking, her eyes on another. 

What it must have been like, he thought. For Hattie. Walking down the aisle towards the start of a new life, only to be stopped in her tracks by a ghost. 

And Walsingham—left behind without so much as an explanation. Pacing and sweating, worried and heartbroken. He'd never get over it, being left that way. Would he? 

_I thought he was dead._

 

 

"—entirely incompatible, you know. They'd have been divorced by year's end." 

John looks up. "What?" 

"Please," Sherlock says. "Even you can't have mistaken that for love." 

"I—" 

"She'd cleaved to him out of loneliness, a need for security. He to her because she was younger and significantly more attractive than his other prospects. Not exactly a recipe for success." 

"Christ," John says. He stands up. 

"She did him a favour, in the end. Leaving." 

"You would think that, yeah." 

He thinks of Hattie's lover, quietly standing by while she spoke to them. The way he'd finally gone to her, put an arm around her shoulders. The way she'd melted against his side like she'd been made to fit there. The scars on the man's face, his hands. 

There would have been joy in that reunion, he thinks. Joy and terrible anger, all at once. 

"She changed her mind so quickly," John says. He cannot seem to move past this. "One glimpse of a face from the past and just—just like that. She gave everything up." 

"One could argue that she did not change her mind quickly enough," Sherlock says. He is smiling a little bit, a strange sort of smile that pulls only at the edges of his mouth. "Could have saved a great deal of trouble by running off _before_ she'd said her vows." 

John shuts his eyes. He sips his drink. The glass sweats in his palm. 

His face is hot. His heart thuds unsteadily in his chest. He can feel Sherlock's eyes on him, that clear penetrating gaze. 

"It was selfish," he says, finally. "What she did." 

"Of course it was," Sherlock says. He pauses, and takes a sip from his glass. John watches his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Doesn't mean it was wrong." 

John thinks: _Doesn't it?_ but does not speak out loud. 

By the way Sherlock's brows lift, he is fairly sure his thoughts have been made plain regardless. 

 

 

There are times that John allows himself to imagine Sherlock's return as something other than what it was. 

In spite of Sherlock's insistence to the contrary, John is a practical man. He is not given to whimsy, to flights of fancy. And yet—

And yet. Sometimes, in idle moments, he wonders. 

Sherlock had come back to him with a manic smile and a bad accent. He'd wanted laughter and had instead taken a fist to the face. He'd been hurt, oh Christ he'd been hurt badly, John knows that now, but he'd hidden it well. 

Sherlock had played his death for a laugh, and John had felt justified in his anger.

But if he had appeared under different circumstances?

If he had—

There is no use in imagining, but John does. 

Sometimes Sherlock is sitting in his chair in 221B when John arrives with Mrs Hudson for one last look around. He stands up with a wince and a quiet beseeching _John_ and there is nothing to do but go to him. 

Sometimes he appears at the table where John is sweating in his suit with a ring in his pocket, except he doesn't lead in with an elaborate ruse, he simply sits down in Mary's empty chair and puts his hands flat on the white tablecloth and says _Hello, John._

Sometimes he turns up at the surgery where John works, a disheveled patient in rumpled clothes. 

Sometimes he does not return until later, years down the road, and Rosie throws open the door to their little townhouse to find a stranger on the stairs. 

There is nothing to be gained from this. It happened the way it happened. It cannot be changed. 

 

 

"John," Sherlock says, and his voice is deep and quiet and somber. 

John sets his empty glass down. He is not drunk, but his tongue feels looser. He does not want to sit silently any longer. 

"I don't want to write about the case," he says. "You're right. It bothers me. And not because—not because she was cruel. Not only because of that." 

Sherlock lifts his brows, waits. 

"She did what I couldn't," John says. His voice is very low. Barely a whisper. 

"I don't understand," Sherlock says. 

"I know you don't." 

Sherlock blinks and blinks and blinks. 

"If you had—if I—" John presses the back of his hand against his mouth for a moment, steadies himself. "I might have done things differently. I might not have married—I might not have married Mary." Even now, he finds it difficult to say her name. It is a wound that will not quite heal. 

"I don't—" 

"I might have come back here. To Baker Street. I might not have—" John shakes his head, ploughs on. "I might have been selfish. I might have hurt her, to do what I really wanted to do. And I can't—I can't quite make that fit, Sherlock. Because if I'd done that, if I'd been selfish like that, I wouldn't have my daughter. She wouldn't _exist._ And I can't—as much as I wish things were different, sometimes, as much as I want—I can't wish that. I can't—I just—" 

Sherlock is in front of him, crouched down, a hesitant hand hovering at his shoulder. John startles a bit. He did not hear him stand up. 

"You are here," Sherlock says. He lets his hand drop, his palm warm through the fabric of John's shirt. 

"I know," John says. "That's not what I mean." 

"No," Sherlock says. "You _are_ here. And so is Rosie. And that's—" he pauses, looking oddly bashful. "Well. I wouldn't have it any other way. Given the choice."

John's eyes sting. He blinks, looks away. There is more in Sherlock's gaze than he is prepared to see. 

"John," Sherlock says. His voice has gone hesitant. His hand begins to slip from John's shoulder. 

John reaches up, covers that hand with his own. Holds it firm. 

"I'm where I want to be," John says, still not meeting his gaze. "I'm exactly where I want to be." 

Sherlock breathes. His exhalation is unsteady. "Is—would—an embrace—?" 

That surprises a laugh out of John. He leans forward, pulls Sherlock against him. It is not the first time they've held one another, though the positioning is rather intimate. One of Sherlock's elbows rests on John's thigh. Sherlock's hair is rumpled and sweet-smelling under John's nose. 

It strikes him that he has wanted to do this for a very long time—simply to hold Sherlock for the sake of holding him. To love Sherlock for the sake of loving him. 

He has always been afraid. He's not quite sure, now, what he was afraid of. 

"John," Sherlock says. His voice is muffled against John's neck. He makes no effort to pull back. "What you said, earlier. About wanting to come back when—" 

"Yes," John says. He smiles, because there is no getting around it now, and it is a relief to find himself here at last. "I'm in love with you. Probably always have been. Well—not always. But for a long time." 

Sherlock breathes. He is silent for a long time. "Oh," he says, finally. His voice shakes. He does not lift his head. 

"Is that--?"

Sherlock draws back just slightly, just enough that John can see his pink-flushed face, his wide surprised eyes. "Yes," Sherlock says. "It's—" he swallows, his eyes cutting to the side. "It's good." 

"Good?" 

"Mutual," Sherlock says. "It's mutual." 

"Oh," John says, and he smiles. "Good." 

"Should I—" Sherlock clears his throat, looks up. "Should we—" 

John kisses him. Their lips slide and bump together, unfamiliar territory, soft and yielding. Sherlock's hands cup his face, impossibly gentle. Warm. There is a hitch in his breath. 

Sherlock pulls back. There is a small, surprised smile playing at edges of his mouth. 

The flat is very quiet. It has grown late. 

"I think I'll light a fire," Sherlock says.


End file.
